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I love how this continues to crank out articles with 0 information and everyone speculating what it might be about.
Don't get me wrong, Nintendo are dickheads, but you can clearly see how everyone greedily clicks on these articles considering how often they get rehashed.
Yes, there are going to be opinion pieces like this one filling the space for a major news story like this one, but there's still room for proper journalism right now. I recommend folks check out PC Gamer's interview with an IP attorney that worked in Tokyo (which was also the second link in this posted article).
Software patents are a thorny topic, and it's worthwhile for enthusiasts of the industry or those interested in IP law to read up on the concept in general. There's risk for Nintendo here, and I found Sigmon's offhand comment about how Nintendo's ramped up legal hiring to be particularly interesting.
Even with more info these articles just devolve into
Mario man bad but we all still love Mario? New Zelda in the spring be sure to line up now.
I think the thing that's the most confusing about this is why did they wait??
"The timing is particularly baffling: Nintendo did not strike when the iron was hot and everyone was talking about Palworld and Pokémon, and at this late date, why bother? The greatest heights of Palworld's success were clearly driven by the memetic catchiness of its Pokémon parody, now it's just another survival crafting game with a stable enough core community—see also Valheim or Sons of the Forest. Palword has faded into the background, a brief curiosity overshadowed by 2024's far more enduring megahit, Helldivers 2. Just in time for everyone to have largely forgotten about Palworld and moved on, Nintendo has swooped in to announce: "In case you've forgotten, they're the little guy, and we are huge, awful bullies."
Palworld has reportedly made nearly $500 million now (source - Simon Carless). Even if Nintendo win in some way won't it cost them so much more to take Pocket Pair down now?
They waited until they could file a few new patents, namely the catching and mounting mechanisms. Now they have a bit more legal standing it seems, although I'm not sure how this is all gonna shake out
Patents filed after your rival releases a product don’t work - it’s textbook prior art.
I remember reading that Japan is very weird in regards to patent law, there's almost no oversight whatsoever even for incredibly basic concepts like a title screen but there's kind of a general agreement not to sue eachother. Assuming thats true Nintendo is currently burning a lot of face right now by breaking that precident.
They aren't "new" patents. They're divisional patents, essentially splitting an older patent into two different patents that retain the date of the parent patent.
Either way this is a pretty scummy move on Nintendo's part.
Not sure how it works in Japan but you're probably right. Edit: Was thinking about this article that lays out the known details pretty well
I'm going to patent the crap out of everything.
Like if you push a button in the direction your character is facing you move in that direction. I'm going to patent that shit.
Then I'm going to patent that if you push button and the opposite direction of your character, if it's a 3D game you turn around. And then I have ab separate patent with having the character walk backwards.
I'll just take the absolute piss out of the most basic things and absolutely everything I can find. And then throw a bunch of frivolous patent lawsuits at Nintendo.
I know it's petty. But maybe Nintendo, like many other corporations in the gaming industry, have just been around maybe a little too long and have lost the vision and the purpose. Cuz at this point Nintendo's not even trying. But they are heavily relying on nostalgia for sales. They're more known for being a litigious company than a gaming company.
To maximize profits and costs they can go after, and to be a bit less on the radar of the public eye. Now that palworld is essentially done making money, Nintendo can go after that amount.
Say it is the throwing spheres that Nintendo is basing the suit off of. If Nintendo tried suing in the midst of its popularity, palworld could have just switched the capture system to like a special gun or cubes or something. Nintendo wanted to wait in order to financially crush them into dust.
I for one am a lifelong Nintendo customer that has finally decided to boycott them moving forward. Plenty of other companies to support.